Nikki Juen is an artist, designer and educator interested in the spaces where these practices overlap. She is a lecturer and critic in the Division of Experimental and Foundation Studies at Rhode Island School of Design. As a founding faculty member of the MFA in Graphic Design at Vermont College of Fine Arts her research focuses on the body as media as well as the contemplative mind in higher education. Her classes, workshops and mentorships explore the development of the individual through the cultural roles of art and design in society. She helps non-profits, institutions, and individuals develop attentive and holistic understanding of their intention, function, and efficacy. Juen recently spoke in Chicago on International Women’s Day as part of the American Institute of Graphic Arts initiative, Women in Design: Leading with Intent and Integrity.

As a poli-disciplinary practitioner, Juen explore’s the actions of making of art and design while using education as agency in a search to represent the ways humans share a collective social body. Through gestures of receiving and giving, she seeks participatory engagement as an aesthetic form that considers the viewers implication in layers of public feelings.

Juen’s collective, Public Displays of Affection (PDA) is a collective of artists, designers, educators, and organizers that engage in nonviolent direct art action. Their actions start with hope and aim to build communities that thrive on intersecting relationships. To resist misogyny, sexism, and exclusion they practice rematriation and believe interconnectivity is essential in honoring the earth and all living beings. PDA collective stands in solidarity with a chorus of voices from all socio-economic, geographic, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including indigenous communities, people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ communities.